I'll Have the Golden Calf with Fries

"I, the LORD, am your God, 
who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.You shall not have other gods besides me.
You shall not carve idols for yourselves 
in the shape of anything in the sky above 
or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; 
you shall not bow down before them or worship them."

Today's first reading is the story of God speaking out the ten commandments. The first commandment forbids us from having any false gods, bowing down to statues of any living thing or worshipping them.  Oh boy! I wonder if the Church knows about this commandment.  I've been in a lot of Catholic churches and I've seen a lot of statues are we in trouble or what?   Actually, "or what" would fit better here than "trouble."  Once and for all, Catholics do not and never have worshipped statues.  We use statues, in the same manner, we use pictures of our loved ones, as a reminder of them, we know that the picture is not them, not even a substitute for them, just an image to help us remember them. I am done defending the statues that appear in various Catholic churches, they are a non-issue as far as I am concerned.  But idol worship is a very serious thing. 

God is very serious that we do not worship idols. He knows that idol worship takes us away from His loving care and sends us down the wide and smooth road to perdition.  But, I've established that we do not worship statues.  Doesn't that mean we Catholics have commandment one aced?  There may be a few of us that really and truly do have it aced and do not offend against this commandment but I bet if we really think about it, we can find idols that we do worship that are not statues or pictures. 

Where do we find these things?  We find them inside our heads for the most part. Anything that leads us away from God is an idol that we are bowing down to and making sacrifices to and violating this first commandment.  If something is taking the place of God in our lives, that something is an idol.

Think carefully about your wants and desires.  Focusing on a want or desire simply to satisfy yourself and not caring what effect it has on others is the same as idol worship.  The Israelites knew that the golden calf was not God.  They were not invested in the calf, it cost them nothing because they were using the gold and jewels that the Egyptians gave them to fashion the idol. The calf itself was a beautiful loathsome thing made out of the gold of Egypt and the sin of the people, it was pricelessly valueless.  This is the same thing the object of our desires becomes when it takes the place of God in our lives.  When it takes over and pulls us away from God, then we are worshipping it as God.  Since the object is not God, then it is subject to decay, rust, moths, age, and other things that destroy the temporary. 

So, don't worry about the statues in the church, they are harmless. But think carefully about those things for which you lust for as you watch them, they may turn to rust. 

Now a word from our sponsor...The Holy Souls never forget someone that has prayed for them.  They need our prayers because they cannot help themselves.  Remember them in your prayers today.  An Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be takes but a minute for us but it means so much for them.